Margaritas & Murder (21 page)

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “It must have been a traumatic time.”

She gave me a wry smile. “San Miguel is becoming a city of losses for me. But you didn’t come here to discuss my love life. Or did you?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “You had indicated you were coming back to the house yesterday, and you didn’t return. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she said in a tone that hinted that she thought I wasn’t being truthful.

“Who have you spoken to about Woody’s death?” I asked.

“I don’t recall,” she said, stroking the brushes in one of the paint cans. “It was all over town shortly after I left the Buckleys’ house—on the radio, on television.” She sighed and gazed up at me. “How is the tea?”

“Terrific. I pride myself on the iced tea I make back home in Maine, but yours is delicious, too. The mint leaves give it a wonderful flavor.”

She took a brush from the can, swirled it around in the dirty water, and rubbed it with a corner of the paint-stained rag. “Everyone has a skill they can call their own,” she said.

I couldn’t tell if she was being snide. “I know I’m intruding on your work, Sarah. I have the same problem you do when I’m writing a book. Some days the words just flow, and I try to turn out as many pages as possible. Other days—”

“Art and the artist,” she said, brightening. “The eternal question: Where does creativity come from, and how do you keep it flowing year after year? What’s your answer?”

“I wish I had one,” I said, sipping my tea.

The telephone rang. She excused herself and left the room.

In her absence, I got up from my chair and went to where her new works were displayed on the wall. The line drawings and washes were very different from the art hanging in Vaughan and Olga’s home, more impressionistic than those gracing my friends’ living room wall and more sophisticated than the younger work in their dining room and hall. She was working in a different medium, using watercolors and inks instead of the oils I was used to seeing. Was she experimenting with something new, or making an effort to paint in a style more appealing to prospective buyers? As I examined her work, my eyes strayed to the table with the ink bottles and boxes of pens. What I had earlier taken to be a bracelet was, on second glance, not a piece of women’s jewelry at all. It was a man’s watch with a woven leather band, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it was the watch that Woody’s son, Philip, claimed to have misplaced.

Interesting,
I thought. Had he come to the studio to tell Sarah of his father’s murder? For consoling? That seemed a safe assumption. Why Sarah, I wondered, and not another of his father’s friends? It might not mean anything. Still, a man didn’t usually remove his watch, unless ... Were Sarah and Philip engaged in an affair? I judged her to be in her early forties; Philip was considerably younger, barely out of his teens. But she said she liked younger men. And men of any age would be drawn to her dark beauty and intensity, her talent and passion. What ran through my mind at that moment was that if that scenario were true—that Woody’s young son was romantically involved with a woman his father had coveted—it could spawn some pretty strong feelings between father and son.

I returned my attention to the art on the easels. Lifting a corner of the covering, I studied what she’d hidden from view. This was the kind of oil painting I’d begun to associate with her, dark and violent. But I thought I remembered Olga saying those were early works. Why would she be working on a painting she had finished years ago? I leaned close to see the detail in the scene. It was a montage of Mexican peasants. Some held rifles above their heads, or pitchforks and other farm tools. Their faces were set in anger. But not all of them. Sarah had started to paint out the faces of two figures. One was completely obscured, but the features of the other were still visible through the thin layer she’d brushed over them. He stood in the center of the group, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the face belonged to Woody Manheim.

Sarah’s sudden reappearance in the room startled me, and I bumped against the table holding the inks and watercolors, causing the liquids to slosh around in their containers.

“Don’t get that ink on you,” she said. “It’s permanent.” She held out her smock to show me the stains.

“An occupational hazard,” I said.

“Yes.” She noticed the watch on the table and scooped it up, dropping it into a pocket.

“Thanks for letting me interrupt your creative efforts today, Sarah,” I said.

“I needed the break,” she said.

She walked me to the street.

“Mind a word of advice?” she said.

“I’d welcome it.”

“Don’t hold out too much hope for Vaughan.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll be really surprised if he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Woody.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It’s a violent world.”

“Well,” I said, taken aback, “I certainly hope you’re wrong.”

I
stepped outside Sarah’s carved door and came face-to-face with Captain Gutierrez.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I came to visit Sarah Christopher,” I said. “I assume you’re here for the same reason. Am I right?”

“I do not have to tell you my business,” he said, brushing past me and slamming the door behind him.

I sighed. The sky had turned dark gray, reflecting my mood and heralding the arrival of rain sooner or later. Low rumbles from a distance, barking dogs, and the pealing of church bells, a common sound in San Miguel de Allende, assaulted my ears. The Buckleys’ house was not too far from here, but in which direction? I started walking uphill, changed my mind and turned back toward the Parque Benito Juárez. Down the cobblestone street, a man in a blue shirt pulled his hat lower on his face and slipped into an open doorway. Farther away, I could make out the beginnings of a pageant of some sort. Mounted horsemen carrying flags and wearing sombreros edged in dark colors were lined up in formation, the bobbing noses of their steeds pointed in my direction. I decided it would be easier to get my bearings if I returned to my El Jardin starting point and found my way back to Olga’s from there.

The sound of wood slapping against something solid above me caused me to look up. A woman had flung open the shutters on her window and now leaned out. I suppose my face reflected my question about what was occurring. She grinned down at me. “Fiesta!” she called out. “Fiesta!”

The horsemen were moving closer, the hooves of their mounts audible on the cobblestones, and the rumbles I’d heard clarified into the beating of drums, the sounds competing with the barks and howls of the dogs in the courtyards of homes up and down the street. I watched the parade draw near and saw the man in the blue shirt emerge from the doorway. Other doors opened and children and their parents spilled into the street, the little ones hopping and dancing as the procession made its way uphill. They raced toward me, laughing, their parents calling out to caution them. The man remained where he was. He wouldn’t have captured my attention except that I was sure I’d seen him before, when I went to police headquarters that morning. Just a coincidence, I told myself as I turned uphill toward El Jardin, scarcely a block ahead of the parade.

When I reached the park’s perimeter, I paused and waited for the horsemen to pass by me into the square. I craned my neck to see where I’d come from, checking for my tracker.
You’re being foolish,
I told myself.
If he’s there, he’s just coming to watch the fiesta.
Even so, I considered approaching him should he show up again, but my view was suddenly cut off by a line of women in black dresses with purple stoles, two of whom held aloft a picture of a saint, presumably the one in whose honor the festival was being held. In the midst of them was a wooden cart made to resemble a white coffin with black outlines drawn on it. Standing in the coffin replica were children dressed in white with colorful bands across their chests, like beauty pageant contestants but with a more serious purpose.

Concha dancers, bare-chested but for intricately detailed breastplates, followed next. I wondered how they could keep their balance in the huge feathered headdresses shaped like giant disks, which were easily more than half the height of their bodies. But they not only kept their balance, they danced to the beat of the drums, their steps at first measured, then as the tempo increased, more frenzied. The people in the park deserted their benches and gathered for a closer look at the dancers. I was swept along with the crowd as they moved toward the entrance to La Parroquia, the huge Gothic church that towered over the square.

Bringing up the rear of the procession were two mariachi bands, one female and one male. The women wore long sky blue skirts with matching bolero jackets on which white flowers were embroidered, while the men were in tight black suits with gold and silver fringe down the sides of their pants and along the sleeves of their jackets, their hats large and colorfully fringed. Each band played its own music, the sounds of their trumpets, guitars, bass guitars, and violins adding to the general cacophony, the notes blending and competing as the musicians moved into the street in front of the church, the whole accompanied by the pealing from La Parroquia’s spires, which drowned out all other sounds every few seconds as the heavy bells reached the zenith of their arc and the clappers pounded out their heavy knells.

Around me were Mexican men in historical costumes consisting of white pajamas and sandals, similar to figures commonly seen in the paintings of Diego Rivera, and everywhere was the sound of drums whose incessant beating was louder than the thunder I thought I’d heard.

The festivities filled El Jardin, where vendors, who sold their wares daily in the park, had decorated their carts with Mexican flags and red, white, and green bunting. The park was packed with people; locals and tourists alike mixed with the costumed revelers, the atmosphere bursting with celebration and joy. I flinched as the sound of fireworks burst overhead.
You’re jumpy today, Jessica,
I told myself.

I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and cast about for a vendor with something that appealed. Olga had said that the ice cream offered in the park was excellent, and safe to eat. A cool ice cream sounded appealing, and I sought out a cart, bought a large cone from the old fellow manning it, and found a vacant spot on a bench beneath the canopy of a large tree. I took a lick and looked around. The man I’d seen twice before was there again, leaning against a tree a few feet away.

Who are you?
I wondered.

I was about to get up and ask him when my vision was blocked by the sudden arrival of a young man with a large box suspended from a multicolored cord around his neck. Two small wire cages were side by side, close to his body. In each of the cages was a live canary. In front of the cages were two sections of the box, recessed to allow the top of their contents to be even with the surface of the box. Hundreds of tiny slips of paper were in the sunken sections, yellow on one side, pink on the other.

“Señora,” the young man said with a wide smile, “you speak English, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to peer around him to see whether the man was still by the tree.

“Your fortune,” said the young man in good English. “Pauchito and Estelita will perform for the lovely lady and tell her what her future will be.”

“Pauchito and—? Oh, those are the names of the birds?”

“Sí, Señora. They are very wise birds. You will be pleased with what they tell you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I really don’t—”

He leaned closer to me. “It is important that you do,” he said. “What they tell you is very important.”

“It is? All right. How much will it cost?”

“Whatever you wish to give me, Señora. I know you will be generous.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m ready to hear my fortune.”

He opened the door to one of the cages and the bird hopped out onto the slips of paper. “Pauchito will entertain you first,” he said.

I watched as the tiny bird went through an impressive array of tricks, including picking up a tiny hat in its beak, tossing it into the air, ducking under it so it landed on its head, and then shaking it off. It also rang a small bell with its beak on command, stopped when told to by its owner, and rang it again upon instruction.

“That’s wonderful,” I said, meaning it. “I never realized birds could be trained this way.”

“Only these birds, Señora. Now, your fortune.” He said to the bird, “Choose carefully, Pauchito. It is very important for the señora that you choose carefully.”

The bird walked in circles over the slips of paper. It stopped on top of the pink section, dipped its beak into the papers, and withdrew one.

“Your hand, Señora,” the man said.

I extended my right hand, palm up, and Pauchito dropped the paper into it.

“Gracias,”
I said. “Thank you.”

“
De nada,
Señora. It is my pleasure and my little friends’ pleasure, too.”

I pulled money from my purse and handed it to him.

“You are too generous, Señora. Thank you. Thank you.”

I watched him walk away and couldn’t help but smile. It was a charming interlude, one whose memory I would hold for a long time. I looked at the small slip of pink paper, which I’d crumpled into a ball, and was about to drop it into a trash receptacle next to the bench when I remembered what he’d said—that the fortune it contained was important. It was more than just a sales pitch. He’d meant it.

My eyes sought the man in the blue shirt, who I was certain had been following me, but he was nowhere to be seen. I opened the paper, pulled reading glasses from my purse, and squinted to read the tiny type.